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NBC’s Wonder Women TV Show Cancelled Before It Started

When I was younger my favorite TV show of all time was Buffy. She was strong, she was sassy, and she was the Chosen One. It was a great message for any young girl to grow up with and really ground breaking for its time. I think most women would agree with me that ever since Buffy we have been longing for another show with a strong female lead character. Not that there haven’t been any strong female characters since then, but none of them have been the lead characters and most tend to focus more on the male characters.

When I heard there was going to be a new Wonder Woman TV show I was extremely excited… and then extremely disappointed. Each new rumor about the show dashed my hopes a little bit more. The plot, characters, the costume, destroyed any hope I had for a Wonder Woman TV show.

The Costume:

Many things have been said about this costume, so I’ll keep it short. It looks like a cheap costume that anyone could buy at a party store. Her armor is clearly plastic. Does anyone really expect me to believe that her breast won’t pop out that top when she fights crime? And the pants look like crappy latex.

The Characters:

Diana Prince/Diana Themyscyra/Wonder Woman. I’m lost already. Yes, apparently Diana was going to have three alternate identities. Diana Prince: the mousy secretary; Diana Themyscyra: the high power CEO; and Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman never had three identities (unlike Superman) and she was never (to my knowledge) a CEO. Diana Prince was always Wonder Woman, everyone knew she was Wonder Woman, and she was the ambassador for the island of Themyscira. But apparently the writers thought it would be better to try to morph Wonder Woman into a character that was more like Batman.

DC Comics, we know Batman is making you lots a money, but if you don’t have to ruin Wonder Woman over it.

Veronica Cale was also to make an appearance as one of the main villains. She’s bisexual and has a thing for Wonder Woman. Wow! Neither Wonder Woman nor Veronica Cale have ever been bisexual, lesbian, or anything. If anything Wonder Woman being called a lesbian was used to diminish her power as a woman (which is really insulting to lesbians by the way). It was first speculated that Wonder Woman was a lesbian by Fredric Wertharn, the author of Seduction of the Innocent. Wertharn believed that Wonder Woman’s strength and independence made her a lesbian and that that was wrongfully influencing teenagers to accept homosexuality (in the comics she was portrayed as a heterosexual and often a virgin). Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be cool if Wonder Woman had been a lesbian but that was never how her character was written. Instead, it was a lie created to strip her of her power and strength as a female superhero. To put something like that into the TV show was totally out of line.

The Plot:

I’ve already touched on the writers trying to turn Wonder Woman into a lamer version of Batman and the poor insertion of homoerotic subtext so I won’t say more on that here—but there was much more wrong with the plot. Wonder Woman apparently needed a gang of science-nerds to help her solve crime. You know, because she’s a woman and can’t do it on her own like Superman or Batman. Furthermore, most to all of the Greek mythology was going to be cut from the plot, which is where almost all of Wonder Woman’s backstory and character development comes from. This also eliminates almost all of her coolest villains like Ares and Circe.

The Soundtrack:

Why anyone felt the need to play Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”, “One Way or Another” by Blondie, “Wonder of You” by Jeffrey McDonald, “Golddigger” by Kanye West, “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga, “Last of the American Girls” and “Extraordinary Girl” by Green Day, “Pepinot” by Les Choristes, and “I Only Know How to Love” by Christina Aguilera during the pilot is really astounding. I guess women can’t fight crime without listening to totally awesome, super cool soundtracks!

The Actors:

I can’t really speak on this since I never saw the pilot, but Andrianne Palicki did not look the part of Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman may have super powers and be gorgeous, but she’s also a trained Amazon warrior; she’s built. Wonder Woman looks like she could kick your ass with or without superpowers, because she was trained how to fight. Look at this picture and then look back at the picture from the TV show, there is no question who would win in a fight.

The Director:

David E. Kelley was really just portraying Wonder Woman as Ally McBeal with superpowers. He even admitted that he didn’t know what he was doing! Why was he picked to direct and not someone like Joss Whedon who has experience with these things?

I guess we’ll never know now since the show was cancelled before it started, but honestly, I’m glad. Batman still hasn’t lived down the old school Adam West version of himself; I would hate for Wonder Woman to have to live down this. Let’s just say she deflected a bullet here. Meanwhile, the rest of us still longingly wait for a strong lead female character on television…

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One thought on “NBC’s Wonder Women TV Show Cancelled Before It Started”

Great post! I’m disappointed in this failed wonderwoman too… Buffy was an awesome hero, in part, i think, because they neither explained away her feminine side by making her into basically a sterotyped “dude” with no feelings or common female interests, nor did they make her an uber girly-girl, obsessed with pink things and hearts and kittens. (i’m thinking of a lot of cartoon super heroines aimed at preteens here) Buffy was as complicated as any real life woman. She had elements we consider “masculine” and elements we consider “feminine”
I can’t think of too many other main stream fictional characters like her on tv.